some prairies are now so nearly taken
up that there is a mighty rush every
time one of the small remaining tracts
is thrown open for settlement. It is a
well known law that the increase of
population goes on at a continually di
minishing rate, after a country has be
come widely inhabited.
A note of importance is the change
relatively of the standing of some of the
states from their position of ten years
ago. Illinois takes the place of Ohio as
third in population ; Massachusetts that
of Indiana as sixth; Texas leaps from
eleventh to seventh ; there are numer
ous other examples of changes.
Nothing is more indicative of a rest
less, energetic, thrifty people, than these
facts, which nevertheless are taken by
some as startling.
OUR newly established course, Indus
trial Art and Design, under the
charge of Miss Redifer, is acknowledged
to be a success. Already talent which
required only skillful direction in order
to bring it out, begins to show itself.
The course is made to cover Object
Drawing, Elementary Design, Applied
Design, Historic Ornament and Moul
ding.
MANY are firm believers in “luck.”
Many think that a man’s lot is
predestined, let him try to make of him
self what he will. Some say that
Shakespeare believed in luck because he
THE FREE LANCE.
had a character in one of his plays say,
“There is luck in odd numbers.” The
ancients had divers beliefs concerning
the time of a man’s birth, and the ar
rangements of the stars and heavenly
bodies each had some significant omen
as to the man’s future.
We often hear people say that such
a man is lucky, and can “stumble through
the world” in most any manner.
How far could this belief go with a
student at college ? Did anyone ever
hear of a student who trusted to luck
the getting out of his recitations ? Did
some imaginable arrangement of cir
cumstances ever make a man out of a
student who had “stumbled” through
college? No, there is no royal road by
which one may obtain an education ; all
that a man gets in college without effort
will aid him very little in his after life.
THE manner in which many subjects
were discussed at the recent Cen
tral Inter-Collegiate Press Association
at Philadelphia, indicates to some con
siderable extent the trend of popular
feeling in the institutions there repre
sented.
It was generally expressed that there
is a great lack of interest shown by
many editors of college papers, due some
times to the election to such positions
of inferior men by slates, etc. among
students who act selfishly for the body
with which they are associated. This
evil was heartily condemned and plans